ABORTION IN BRAZIL A DEBATE DIVIDED ALONG MORAL, CLASS LINES
By Kevin G. Hall

July 28, 2003 – (Knight Ridder Newspapers) Viviane Borges Coutinho checked into a Brazilian state hospital in unbearable pain from a self-induced abortion. She had taken the ulcer medication Cytotec without a prescription, believing it would terminate her unwanted pregnancy.

Thousands of poor Brazilians have done the same, but what happened next was extraordinary. An attending physician angry about the steady stream of abortions he was seeing accused Coutinho, 25, of infanticide, a crime carrying a possible six-year prison term.

Police handcuffed Coutinho, still bleeding from the abortion, to a hospital bed. Later in the day, they booked her into Rio de Janeiro's notorious Bangu prison.

Uneducated, unwed and unemployed, Coutinho spent nearly two months in jail last fall. During that time, she never knew who was caring for her 10-month-old son, still breastfeeding the day she was imprisoned.

"I couldn't believe this was happening. I thought only about my son," said Coutinho, now free pending trial.

Abortion is illegal in the world's most populous Roman Catholic country, except in cases of rape or grave risk to the mother.
Nevertheless, women's groups estimate that Brazilian women undergo an estimated 1 million abortions annually, and prosecution is rare.

Health Ministry figures report that in 2001 there were 242,000 cases of women seeking treatment for post-abortion complications.

But in Brazil, abortion remains a matter of moral debate, not a public health concern.

"The fact that it is a crime isn't stopping it from happening," said Rosana dos Santos Alcantara, executive coordinator for the rights group Advocaci, which is helping defend Coutinho.

From: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/6404359.htm